While mobile telephones were perhaps viewed by many as a luxury when first introduced into the marketplace, they are today viewed by our society as very important, useful, and convenient tools. A large segment of society now carries their mobile devices with them wherever they go. These mobile devices include, for example, mobile telephones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), laptop/notebook computers, and the like. The popularity of these devices and the ability to communicate “wirelessly” has spawned a multitude of new wireless systems, devices, protocols, etc. Consumer demand for advanced wireless functions and capabilities has also fueled a wide range of technological advances in the utility and capabilities of wireless devices. Wireless/mobile devices not only allow voice communication, but also facilitate messaging, multimedia communications, e-mail, Internet browsing, and access to a wide range of wireless applications and services.
With the introduction of these new services also came the ability to configure the mobile device to accommodate the needs or the tastes of the user. For example, mobile devices now often include configurable and/or adjustable features, such as ringing volume, ringing tones, ringing modes (e.g., ring versus vibrate), business or personal call screening/filtering, alert/notification volume or tone, alert/notification visual effects, and a variety of other variable features or settings. Any number of these mobile device settings may be grouped into different “profiles.” Thus, a mobile device profile generally refers to any number of settings applied to the mobile device. For example, mobile devices such as wireless telephones typically have configurable and/or adjustable features, such as ringing volume, ringing tones, ringing modes, business or personal call screening/filtering, and so forth. Depending on the particular situation of the mobile device, the mobile device user may want to change those settings. Because the user may be frequently presented with certain situations, it may be desirable to change the settings as a group—i.e., change the profile.
For example, the user may select a particular profile before entering a conference room, where the profile includes turning off an alert or ringing volume, and/or turning on a vibration indicator. In this manner, the user can avoid disrupting a meeting from an incoming call or an audible alert. As another example, a profile may be selected by the user when arriving at home. This profile may filter out business calls, enable personal calls, switch to a more personalized ring tone, etc.
However, the user is burdened with making these profile changes. If the user forgets to switch profiles when the situation changes, the exact event that the profile was intended to avoid will occur. For example, if the user forgets to change the profile when returning home, business calls may ring at home, personal calls may fail to ring, etc. These may be precisely the conditions that the user did not want to occur when at home. As another example, if the user forgets to change the profile before entering a meeting, the desired result of not disrupting the meeting with audible notifications and/or ring tones will occur. This places a burden on the user to continually remember to manually change profiles whenever the user's situation changes. Further, even if the user remembers to make the profile change, the user is burdened with actually having to change the profile at each situation change.
Accordingly, there is a need in the communications industry for a more efficient and convenient manner of selecting the profile to be used at a given location. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and offers other advantages over the prior art.